So it's been said that what you listen to at 14 shapes your musical interests for the rest of your life. As I look back...it's probably mostly true for me. I turned 14 in the summer of 1981 and the albums that came out then, are still many that I choose to listen to today:

This is to name but a few. Still love them all and find myself always gravitating towards this music...It just makes me happy. It's not to say that I don't listen to anything else or that my horizons haven't expanded but if I really want to hear some feel-good music, this is the music for me. It's also a lot of what I want to play when I'm sitting behind my drum kit.

So, I'm just curious....what were you listening to at 14 and do you feel that it turned out to be the music you still gravitate towards? Was it the major musical style influence on your life?

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I am deluded enough to think I can bring something to the table - Huey Lewis.

Would be 1988... So my favorite bands at the time were Ozzy / Sabbath, Guns n Roses, Queensryche, and Dokken. I was just starting to get into heavier stuff like Metallica and Megadeth. And I was just starting to play guitar.

Aside from Sabbath (probably my all time favorite band which I can still listen to religiously), I would say that the period a few years later (early 90s, ages 15-18) had a more lasting impact on what I listen from then up to now: alt-rock/hardcore like tool, primus, helmet, clutch, alice in chains, kyuss, bad brains, minor threat, fugazi, fear, etc. and speed/thrash/death-metal like sepultura, carcass, slayer, death, and cynic.

In general, I can't listen to that 1988 stuff now except for a few specific albums (Operation Mindcrime, Appetite for Destruction, and the 1st two Ozzy albums w/ Rhoads -- edit: I know those came out before '88, I just mean that's what I was listening to then...).

Yes, the music/bands/artists you listen and loved at that age (14 up to 16) will probably remain some of your fav music throughout your lifetime, even if you "mature" and discover and love other music later in life, I still listen regularly to the music from these years, some of it makes me smile nowadays, but the biggest chunk of it still kick me in the butt, it's also a postcard from those yesteryear's memories... and most of them feel good... A Day in the Life indeed :)

You always have the best posts, MaryO. Definitely the best avatar photo too....

14 = 1979 for me. Hm. A decent year in pop/rock music but also a transitional one. The punks were hating the soon to be classic rockers big time, while the older guys were trying to stay hip. Billy Joel, "Still Rock and Rocll to Me", McCartney's failed "Back to the Egg" album. 1979 was close to the last days of disco too. Correct me but I think the only year the Grammys had an award for Best Disco Song was 1979. Winner was the great Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive". Then the Disco Sucks debacle at Comiskey Park in Chicago occurred that year. Hm, I think Disco haters were wrong in hindsight. Here we are 33 years later and "I Will Survive" is regarded as a disco anthem, as well as many other tunes, especially Donna Summer's fine catalog. They've aged well. And Chic was at their peak in '79 too. The Rodgers/Edwards duo is certainly regarded today as primo. Great sound and musicianship. For me I recall listening to Kansas and Rush heavily, but also liking top 40 fare. Anyway, yes today I do admit to loving disco and especially drumming Disco. Fun and grooving.

Most music I listened to at 14 is long gone. I'll still listen to a hand full of songs that I was hearing throughout milestones of the time, but other than that I've outgrown it. My favorite song at 14, and I still listen to it for Nastalgic purposes was 'Slither' by Velvet Revolver. I got into rock music when I was around 10 or 11, and my first CD was Bon Jovi's Crush album. It was when I was 13 and 14 that I started tracking down heavier music.

Most music I listened to at 14 is long gone. I'll still listen to a hand full of songs that I was hearing throughout milestones of the time, but other than that I've outgrown it. My favorite song at 14, and I still listen to it for Nastalgic purposes was 'Slither' by Velvet Revolver. I got into rock music when I was around 10 or 11, and my first CD was Bon Jovi's Crush album. It was when I was 13 and 14 that I started tracking down heavier music.

Well it doesn't have to be the exact music you listened to. But at 13 or 14 you say you started tracking dow heavier music...so is that still your taste today? If it is, then the principle still rings true. I may not listen to everything I listened to then but that style of music is still what attracts my ear the most.

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I am deluded enough to think I can bring something to the table - Huey Lewis.

Perhaps it's because of the age. At about that time children begin to assert who they are by discovering what's "theirs". I was 14 in 1980 and I do recall breaking away from the family by choosing who I liked as opposed to listening what was already in the family record collection. But for me it started a bit earlier because my parents would take me music shopping when I was much younger, so consequently music from around 1974 I consider "my own" too. It's when you start to assert an identity, eh?

But big albums for me were Chicago II, V and VIII, Yes' Fragile, Rush' A Farewell To Kings, among others. But I continued to listen to a lot of jazz, Broadway shows (Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell), and a couple of albums by Bach and Mozart too.

Age or maybe school grade. I was two years younger than my classmates by the time I was in 8th grade, so I was 12 years old when others were 14. And that was definitely the year I got into music, and those are still some of my favorite songs today.

I think I saw all of these in concert for those respective tours or just before/after.

Prior to the 1980's classic jazz ruled the roost in my house and today, I am forever grateful for that.

I turned 14 in 1980 and had just started going to live concerts so by then all these bands plus others (from the 70's and early 80's) became the soundtrack of my life for the first half of that decade.

By 1985 jazz and bands like Tower of Power and Chaka Khan / Rufus began to take over the record player and is still what I mainly listen to today.

I still occasionally listen to some 70's and 80's rock to this day for the simple fact of - I still like it and it means something to me emotionally as it provides fond memories for things I was doing at the time.

...But for me it started a bit earlier because my parents would take me music shopping when I was much younger, so consequently music from around 1974 I consider "my own" too. It's when you start to assert an identity, eh?...

Well, that's going back to a very tender age Bo ;)

But yes, I was 14 in 1972, but I was already listening to music before that age, I already had my own records from 1968-69, and I was still listening to records I bought in 68 at 14. It goes the other way too, I don't think it's that specific year (when you're 14) that' so important, but the period were you're starting to discover your own taste in music, I remember thinking that Salisbury from Uriah Heep was one the coolest song I ever heard back in 1971 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQBSeclvMV8, and I still love this song, even today, there was many other songs by many bands, this one's just a good example.

Did that music shaped my musical taste? well yes... at least for a few years, it was even the music I played when I started drumming, but... I think it's only a phase we're going through, and as you grow and mature, you explore new ground, you play "new" music, it becomes a new phase in your life, juxtaposing with your previous phase, and so on... for some the phase changes and metamorphoses are not a world appart and remain focus in the very same music they listen back at 14, but for some others these phases changed and evolved dramatically into new styles radically different than their teenage years.

I'm not sure I would love to play my 14 years old teenage music in a band now, but I'm sure I will love it 'til I die :)

14 was around the time I started listening to Tool, and from there it got heavier and heavier, so its at least shaped what I've been listening to throughout high school -- ISIS, Opeth, Mastodon, Mars Volta, Cult of Luna, Kyuss, Baroness, Truckfighters (the most amazing Stoner Rock of all time!), and I just recently got into Gojira, Kylesa, Agalloch, Minsk, and The Ocean, so yeah...definitely heavier. Oh, and King Crimson.

For me when I was that age, The BeaTles were just arriving along withe the Stones, Dave Clark Five, and a few others. Also Motown. That was the mid to late 60's. Then in the 70's I turned more toward the Jazzy Stuff. Jazz organ to be exact. Jimmy Smith and others. I still like most Genre, and not one more than the other. I guess the premise is correct, but at the same time as The BeaTles, I was playing high school band and orchestra. So there was classical, some Broadway musicals, some John Phillip Sousa and others. So I guess my rambling has confused everyone including myself. I just like most of it and am glad that rap, hip hop, and some other ghastly stuff wasn't out when I was 14. I'd hate to think I would still be listening to that stuff.

Sorry - I forgot to mention that I was 14 when I saw the latest incarnation of King Crimson on tv (Belew, Fripp, Levin, and Bruford), and they were hugely influential (along with the Police) during those years. But I also discovered that KC should only play KC, and the Police were so unique you were considered a clone if you attempted to play their stuff too. Good lessons to learn at a young age, don't you think? But two years before that, I discovered Steve Jordan with the Blues Brothers and that just conflicted me for a long time ;)

I don't think age 14 is any different than any other age when it comes to being influenced. When music grabs you, you know it, age notwithstanding. I loved music as a toddler. Mack the Knife was my favorite song, so they say. I don't actually remember it. I have no doubt that it influenced me in some way though. As a boy in 4th grade, before owning a drumset, I clearly remember my kick pedal leg was always jumping and I was a tapper. I remember tapping out the drum solo to "In-a-gadda-da-vida" on the school lunchroom table at age 11 after I had drums. I was born like this for sure. Like I wasn't born to be an electrician, that's just something I do so I can own a house so I can have a studio so I can play drums.

Age 14 was the year I expanded my mind for the first time and I did look at music differently from then on but I can't say what I was listening to totally shaped my future tastes, it didn't.

I'd say your teen years in general are what shape your music tastes for the rest of your life (but 14 is probably a pivotal turning point).
It was 1989 for me and that would be around the time I stated listening to metal (particularly thrash) and that was it for me.
Having said that I have heard of many guys simply "growing out of it" and forsaking metal once they'd "matured"- weirdo's!!

Age 14 was a bit of a blur, because at 15 I started my first band, and don't remember much about the transition from dreamer to doer. The first band was a cover band [incidentally, the only cover band I've ever played in], and the songs we played consisted of a lot of stuff that is on Steve Tamadrm's list. Yes, that was 10 years later, but all that stuff still mattered. There were a couple of other things, contemporary things for the time, that I could add [Deep Purple, etc.], but for the most part, we were a 60's cover band.

What happened not much later had a huge effect on me, which was punk music. Never went back after that. I've been playing it in some form or another since 1981.

But I think it all makes sense....I had a bitter taste in my mouth from much of the music in the 70's...my band wasn't playing anything on the charts at the time....and I couldn't bring myself to listen to it. Then punk came along.

So, I guess that, even though I was heavily influenced by what I was listening to around that time, I didn't find my true inspiration until a few years later.